


we could be lovers (even just tonight)

by cursedwurm



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, First Kiss, Kinda, Making Out, No beta we die like archival assistants, Self-Indulgent, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24880039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cursedwurm/pseuds/cursedwurm
Summary: It also helps that, despite being the twisted, spiralling embodiment of lies and confusion, Helen is incredibly pretty. Melanie would be lying if she were to say she hadn't imagined kissing her on multiple occasions, out of curiosity if nothing else. Would her lips be soft? Would she smile into the kiss? Would she prod her lips apart with her tongue and pull her closer, or would she let Melanie take the lead? Would Melanie pull away with a dizzyingly bright lipstick stain smudged across her skin? She's fairly sure that only the latter would be true, but she continued to fantasise about snogging The Spiral regardless.Working at the Magnus Institute was doing something to her.--Melanie shoots her shot with The Spiral. What happens next will surprise you!!
Relationships: Helen | The Distortion & Melanie King, Helen | The Distortion/Melanie King
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	we could be lovers (even just tonight)

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this bc a) i love Helen, b) i love melanie, c) i wanted to write some lesbianism and d) i wanted to write the (objectively) hottest tma characters making out. yes that includes tim. 
> 
> this is entirely self indulgent. follow me on [Tumblr](https://snapdraqons.tumblr.com/)  
> please leave kudos/comments if u enjoyed!!

“... Are you going to come out or not?”

Melanie’s eyes narrow as the door - such a bright yellow that it appears almost cartoonish against the drab grey walls of the archives - creaks open and the room is suddenly filled with a layer of static, like they’re inside a TV screen that isn’t quite getting signal. The static is no more unwelcome than the… woman? Person?  _ Thing _ ? it belongs to is, and Melanie doesn't mind her presence, so long as she doesn't try to kill anyone. She sits down on the desk, crossing one impossibly-high mismatched high heeled foot over the other, neon eyes fixed on the knife on Melanie’s desk.

“You’re going to try to stab him?”

“Yes,” Melanie answers simply, “If no-one else is going to kill that son of a bitch, then I will.”

Helen laughs, and it echoes around the room despite its small size and cramped interior. “And how did that work out for you last time, Miss King?” she asks, “As far as I’m aware, you got his coffee order wrong. Pretty sure it’s just a plain americano-”

Melanie bristles at this, clenching her jaw and reaching for the knife. “I don’t care what his fucking coffee order is!” she snaps, “All I care about is seeing him  _ dead _ .”

Helen raises an eyebrow at this, her long, out-of-proportion hand taking the knife away from Melanie before she can take it. She tuts and the static in the room gets louder, enveloping Melanie like a thick winter’s fog that penetrates her clothes and creeps over her skin. “As fun as this was the first few times,” the distortion lets out something akin to a sigh, though it sounds so warped and glitchy that it’s hard to tell, “This is really starting to get repetitive. I mean, come  _ on,  _ Melanie- have you really let the anger consume you already? Is this really who you are?”

Melanie’s eyes widen, and she looks from the desk to the knife, to Helen and then back down at the desk. She opens and closes her mouth, furrowing her brows together in frustration as the question echoes in her mind. She’s angry. She’s always been angry. Even as a child, she was angrier than most, getting annoyed at her friends and her classmates and her childhood hamsters far more often than most eight-year-olds would. As far as Melanie can remember, she’s been temperamental and stubborn and snarky to anyone who shows her even the slightest degree of hostility; she’s fairly sure it’s a coping mechanism, to deal with her mother’s death when she was younger, and her father’s when she was older. But that had been different. That had been a front to hide her true emotions, to avoid having to ask for help. This anger is different; it burns white-hot inside of her and is slowly consuming her, using her very being as fuel as the anger becomes her and she becomes it. She doesn’t like it, but at the same time, she can’t help but feel… comfort from it. It isn’t like it’s not justified. After everything Elias has done to not just her, but to tens, hundreds, maybe even  _ thousands  _ of people, she’s got every right to be a little angry.

“That doesn’t matter,” she eventually replies, “Besides, isn’t your whole thing… not having an identity? Like, aren’t you… not really Helen or whatever?”

Helen laughs, holding the knife by the blade and passing it back to Melanie. “Something like that, yes,” she smiles, “If it’s confusing you, it’s working.”

“Right.” Melanie frowns, taking the knife from her. She gets to her feet and goes to put in the inside pocket of her leather jacket, but hesitates for a moment before putting it back down on the desk, her mind changed. “Helen?” she asks, “How much do you… remember?”

“Remember from what?” Helen gets to her feet, the click of her heels on the floorboards echoing far louder than they should, “From being Helen Richardson?”

“...Yes.”

Helen picks up a statement that Melanie had considered reading. She scans the page for a brief moment before tossing it over the shoulder and leaning against the wall. "I remember it… but not in the same way you probably remember your past," she purses her lips - painted a dizzyingly bright shade of hot pink- and furrows her brow in thought. "Remembering Helen Richardson is like watching someone else's life through a TV screen. When I became her and she became me I retained her memories but… they no longer belonged to either of us, even though they were ours in the first place. I remember a lot, yes, but it isn't necessarily mine to remember."

"Oh." Melanie bites her lip in thought, looking up at Helen as she inspects her nails, razor sharp and painted day-glow orange on the end of her long, bony fingers. "Does that not bother you?"

"Why should it?" Helen raises her perfectly manicured eyebrow - a jarring contrast to the rest of her sickeningly bright, distorted appearance. "I'm not Helen Richardson, at least not in the same way that you're Melanie King. Those memories aren't mine in the same way yours are yours, or Basira's are Basira's, or Elias' are… well…" She cuts herself off with a laugh and Melanie suddenly feels viscerally uncomfortable, in a way she hadn't before.

"Don't talk about him," she says sharply, "Just… don't."

Helen nods slowly as if processing what she's said, her dangling neon earrings clunking together loudly as they move. Melanie watches her with a sigh, putting the knife in the drawer under her desk as the Distortion makes her way back to the desk, her too-long legs bent awkwardly as she swings them back and forth underneath it. She's almost nauseating to look at, the colours of her neon suit shifting and swirling with every movement she makes. Her eyes seem to do the same; Melanie could've sworn they were lime green before but now they're the shade of yellow seen on glow-in-the-dark traffic signs. It should be fear-inducing - that is, after all, the point to The Spiral's existence - but over the weeks since they first met she's become so accustomed to it that she no longer feels scared at all.

It also helps that, despite being the twisted, spiralling embodiment of lies and confusion, Helen is incredibly pretty. Melanie would be lying if she were to say she hadn't imagined kissing her on multiple occasions, out of curiosity if nothing else. Would her lips be soft? Would she smile into the kiss? Would she prod her lips apart with her tongue and pull her closer, or would she let Melanie take the lead? Would Melanie pull away with a dizzyingly bright lipstick stain smudged across her skin? She's fairly sure that only the latter would be true, but she continued to fantasise about snogging The Spiral regardless.

Working at the Magnus Institute was doing something to her.

"You're thinking about something," Helen's voice echoes across the room, pulling Melanie out of her thoughts. She feels herself go pink as she snaps back into reality, looking up at the Distortion as she smirks smugly down at her. 

"...How do you know?"

"You make a face when you're zoned out," Helen observes, "You furrow your brows and bite your lip. It's quite amusing."

At this, Melanie scowls, huffing and crossing her arms as she puts her feet up on her desk. "Oh, piss off-"

"And now you're annoyed," Helen lets out a chuckle, tapping her nails along the desk, "Which is also quite amusing."

"Alright, I get it." Melanie sighs and rolls her eyes, though there's no malice in her actions, "Did you need something? Or did you just come here to stop me from killing Elias? Because it's not working."

"Mostly the latter," Helen grins, "Though I suppose I could stick around a bit longer. In a bit I've got to make a guy in my corridors lose his mind after opening a door to the same room fifty times, but other than that my schedule for the day is free."

"Don't suppose you could help me hide a body?"

"Not really my thing," Helen shrugs, "If I'm going to kill anyone, it'll be Jon. Besides, that would be awfully predictable, don't you think? I'd rather just sit and chat." She laughs, and it sounds both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Her mostly-human form glitches into something a little stranger and a lot brighter for a moment, and the static film that seems to coat the air momentarily becomes more intense- though not unpleasant. In fact, Melanie quite likes it, though maybe that's just because it's not something to be angry about. After all, nothing The Spiral does is ever going to make sense, so there's very little point in wasting her time getting mad at it.

Helen's also hot, but that's besides the point.

Letting out a sigh, Melanie gets up from the desk and starts going through statements that she feels oddly compelled to read allowed - but won't, for Helen's sake. "Well, if you're not going to help me get away with murder," she says, "You might as well help me file these statements."

"That's boring." Helen hides her smile behind a hand as she giggles, which is pretty cute considering her fingers look like they can (and probably do) cut through human flesh.

Melanie clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth in mock exasperation, looking up from the filing cabinet she's going through. "What do you suggest I do then?" she asks, "We can't all just disappear into a spooky corridor whenever we feel like it."

"I don't know," Helen replies, "You know that isn't my area of expertise." She grins to herself, cocking her head to the side as if in curiosity, a garishly bright cyan swirling through the hot pink of her eyes. "I'm curious," she continues, "What do you want to do, Melanie? Other than kill Elias?"

"I-" Melanie opens her mouth to answer, then closes it again with a frown. The question - combined with the sly tilt of Helen's head - sounds particularly pointed, and Melanie feels herself blush as the first thought that comes to her mind is 'making out'. It's not like the Distortion can read her thoughts; The Spiral doesn't exactly deal in finding the truth. Yet something in her tone of voice tells Melanie that she somehow knows  _ exactly  _ what she's thinking, knows exactly what she'd rather be doing. This could also, of course, be a trap, but considering all the other terrible traps she's fallen into lately Melanie honestly doesn't think admitting to wanting to shove her tongue down Helen's throat is all that bad.

When she eventually speaks she can't quite bring herself to look up at Helen, who's still giving her a curiously distorted smile that dances on the line between sweet and terrifying. "Helen?" she says, "Do you…  _ feel _ ?"

"In what way?"

"Well, do you…" Melanie frowns as she figures out how to phrase what she wants to say, "Do you feel attraction? Like, can you be into people?" She cringes inwardly as the words leave her mouth, though the phrasing isn't nearly as awkward as the fact that she's made the (rather stupid) decision to shoot her shot with the physic embodiment of an eldritch fear entity. She's half expecting Helen to laugh, maybe to call her an idiot and drag her into her corridors and let her lose her mind there. But instead she pauses, puckering her lips in thought, before nodding with a smile. "I can be attracted to people, yes," she replies, "Though probably not in the same way you're attracted to people. Attraction is a feeling I can have, yes, but feelings are secondary to everything else that I am - experiencing them in too great a capacity is what destroyed my predecessor."

"That doesn't bother you?"

"Not at all."

Melanie purses her lips, undeniably disappointed by Helen's answer "So does that mean you're not-"  _ attracted to women _ , she had been about to say, but Helen cut her off before she could finish.

"Not attracted to you?" she asks, her laugh both horrifying and beautiful as she slides off the desk, "Not necessarily." Melanie swallows as she comes to stand in front of her, looming at least a foot over her, and cupping her chin between a pointed finger and thumb. Her breath hitches as her head is tilted upwards and she makes eye contact with Helen, losing herself momentarily in the sickeningly vivid swirls of neon in her irises. "You're hardly difficult on the eye. Helen Richardson would've liked you."

Melanie flushes, feeling the heat in his cheeks spread to her ears. "What about you?" she breathes, her voice barely louder than a whisper, "What does  _ this _ Helen Richardson think of me?"

Helen doesn't give her a verbal answer, nor does she give her time to say anything else. Melanie barely processes what's happening and by the time she realises that the Distortion's lips are pressed against hers she's already wrapping her arms around her waist. Kissing Helen is a lot like pressing your face too close to an old tv screen, Melanie thinks, except the static doesn't just dance over your skin - it consumes your entire being, turning your body numb to all feelings except for the kiss. 

Melanie can't get enough of it; she's stood up now, on her toes as she holds Helen's waist, leaning up into her as her long, knife-like fingers card through her hair, not quite scratching her scalp hard enough to hurt. The kiss is deep and warm, the Distortion's lips somehow hot and wet and cold and chapped at the same time. Melanie tilts her head to the side, letting her eyes fall shut as she grips the front of Helen's blazer to pull her closer. She hums against Helen's mouth, though the sound is lost to the high-pitched buzz of static that surrounds her, penetrating her body and making her entire being feel like it's being twisted and pulled and distorted into a million spirals of neon colour. In that moment everything is forgotten; Melanie can't remember her paperwork, Elias, the institute, even her own name, but she's more than happy to let everything melt away into a swirl of static and hot pink lipstick as she probes Helen's mouth open with her tongue and lets the Distortion prop her up on the desk so she no longer has to reach up to kiss her.

Helen lets out a noise that's somewhere between a sigh and a gasp, opening her mouth and slipping her tongue into Melanie's. Melanie's eyes open for a moment and they widen in surprise and confusion as it pushes past her lips; she's not sure what she had been expecting, but the Distortion's tongue isn't exactly…  _ human _ . It's larger and wetter than a regular human tongue, and seems to mold itself into different shapes as it fills the inside of Melanie’s mouth, muffling her groans as she pulls Helen closer and slides her fingers into her hair. She wonders for a moment how her tongue would feel elsewhere on her body, before her thoughts join the rest of her being in becoming a buzz of static and colour that twists and turns in a surprisingly pleasant manner.

They stay like that for a while; at some point Melanie parts her legs to let Helen stand between them and the Distortion’s long, pointed fingers rest on her cheek, cupping his face gently enough to not scratch her skin. Melanie doesn’t know how long they’re there for, kissing against her desk in the archives - and she isn’t sure whether she’s losing track of time or if this is also a side-effect of letting the Spiral shove its tongue down her throat. When they eventually pull away there’s a long thin of something resembling spit connecting their mouths, far more viscous than it should be and bright pink in colour. Helen’s form seems unstable, flickering between something that isn’t quite human and a swirl of abstract shapes that Melanie couldn’t possibly begin to describe. It takes her a moment to remember how to talk, and when she eventually figures out what she wants to say her words come out slow and slurred like she’s somehow drunk on the confusion and deceit of The Spiral.

“That was… good,” she says slowly, and Helen laughs.

“You certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself,” she smiles, “I don’t think I’ve done that since before-”

Melanie doesn’t let her finish, gripping the fluorescent lapels of her blazer and pulling her closer. “Do you want to do it again?”

Helen doesn’t need to be asked twice.


End file.
